If you follow the ketogenic diet and practice sports, the first difficulty that sportsmen and athletes may encounter, and perhaps even the main one, is to cross the first weeks of fuel change.

It can be a difficult time and you will experience a number of side symptoms that you need to know and deal with.

The first side effect concerns typical withdrawal symptoms from sugars and flour products: the body must learn to eat more fat at the expense of carbohydrates.

Then, if we have exaggerated with sugars consuming low fats, the symptoms of detoxification due to liver purification will manifest thanks to the introduction of healthy fats, in a more consistent way.

HOW TO AVOID AND OVERCOME SIDE EFFECTS

• Introduce fats gradually, so you can get used to it and do not have to experience exaggerated liver purification and especially all at once;
• Drink regularly the right amount of water, in order to promote detox; if you experience nausea, add a few drops of lemon to the water you drink and consume as much hot water as possible, which is much more effective (valid double);
• It consumes more proteins and vegetables cooked in these first days of transition. They will support you especially in dealing with and defeating fatigue and hunger from sugar shortages. Both symptoms that will be attenuating in the days and that will lead you to normalise in a short time your consumption of these two nutrients, bringing them back to the right amounts for you;
• Treats the right supply of electrolytes, taking supplements rich in magnesium and potassium, slightly increasing the salt in the dishes and producing meat broth (excellent source of minerals and collagen);
• Consume more naturally sugar-rich vegetables in these first weeks (carrots, pumpkins) or low fructose fruits (such as berries, kiwis, green apples and strawberries), and remember that avocado can be very useful;
• Decrease exercise in the first weeks of dietary change, but don’t worry, you can gradually increase it as your body produces ketones efficiently and you return to your previous performance and improve it, you just have to have patience.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO ADAPT TO THE KETOGENIC DIET?

Be patient, it could take a few weeks to bring your body back to its basal metabolism.

Generally, adaptation can be short and can take a few days, but bringing your basic performance back to the previous level may take longer.

Research says this may take from a few weeks to a few months depending on the individual condition.

If as an athlete you are bound to seasonal yields, it is ideal to wait to make this change at a time when you are in low season or ideally at rest.

According to some nutritionists of the past, the ketogenic approach was inadequate for endurance sports that would need carbohydrates.

This has been absolutely overcome in recent times: in fact, in all the research carried out in the past, the period of adaptation had never been considered and no strategies were offered to deal with it and overcome it.

The current conclusions even suggest superiority of performance for endurance sports over the old sugar-based approach

For sports with a high intensity of effort, which must be short but very intense, research has not yet established whether a ketogenic diet can guarantee higher performance.

In fact, the conclusions are still open and the same ketogenic diet can have different grades so it is always good to test individually, keeping an open mind.

IMPORTANT POINTS NOT TO BE UNDERESTIMATED WHEN YOU FOLLOW THE KETOGENIC DIET AND DO SPORTS

Make sure the ketogenic diet you’re doing is balanced and satiating.

You may have adverse symptoms that are not related to ketogenic intake in yourself but to the fact that you are applying it incorrectly or are not eating enough.

And consider that for some, LDL cholesterol can arise during the first period of adaptation to the ketogenic diet, although the other markers are all in balance. This can also happen in thin and athletic people.

The increase in LDL cholesterol is not bad in itself, although many doctors tend to worry about it, and the cause of this increase remains mostly unknown

Important points to address this temporary rise can be:

• carry out proper cleaning of the old oxidised cholesterol;
• carry out a liver cleansing;
• eliminate parasites from the body;
• check iodine values.